//------------------------------// // Chapter 8 - Haunting Dreams // Story: Portals. Portals Everywhere! // by Piece Bot //------------------------------// Two months ago … A bright purple light flashed into Princess Celestia’s throne room, interrupting her daily court. All the ponies there looked shocked, except for Princess Celestia, who merely sighed. “We are going to take an unexpected break.” Celestia said, much to the dismay of the ponies already in court. When they had finished moving out of the room, Celestia turned her attention to Twilight Sparkle. Seeing that she had an angry look on her face, Celestia grew slightly worried. “What is wrong my student?” “What is wrong? What is WRONG?! Remember that human you let Princess Luna steal the voice from? He’s miserable! I can barely understand him now, let alone anypony else. He hasn’t even been out of his room ever since he lost his voice. I haven’t been around mute ponies mainly because no pony actually is mute, but I can tell that this is horrible.” Twilight said furiously. Looking behind Celestia, she thought she saw a wisp of a blue tail seemingly blend into the shadows. Focusing her magic, she grabbed the tail and yanked, pulling Princess Luna out of the shadows and closer to her and Celestia. Narrowing her eyes, Twilight rounded on Luna. “Fluttershy told me that not having a voice could be the worst thing imaginable. Asides from vague waving and random signs, she said that there was no other way to express himself and considering he doesn’t know how to hold a quill properly, nor is he willing to learn to, he has no other choice. I am sick of this! All of my friends are! We all want his voice back, especially Joseph!” Twilight shouted and breathed heavily, letting go of Luna’s tail. Standing speechless, both Celestia and Luna took a while to process what Twilight had said, giving her more than enough time to calm down. “Why did you even take his voice away?” Twilight questioned Luna in a more calmer tone. Luna looked at Twilight for a long while before speaking. “I took his voice away because he wouldn’t be quiet. It would have been a lot easier to tell him to be quiet but I also did it to teach him a lesson.” “What lesson?” Twilight asked through gritted teeth. “That children should be seen and not heard.” Luna replied with a calm gaze. “What? That’s ridiculous! From what he managed to tell me, he is not a child by his species’ standards. If anything, he’s a grown up like me and my friends. I need a better reason if I’m to believe that what you did was right.” Twilight retorted. “Fine then. I did it because I don’t like him. It may be stupid reasoning but that’s how I feel.” Luna said finally, looking down at the ground. Twilight huffed and turned to Celestia only to see her shake her head. “Twilight, I’ll see if I can convince my sister to return his voice. In the meantime, he has to get used to not having it.” Celestia said softly. She then turned and walked over to Luna. They began talking and Twilight hoped that Luna was being convinced of returning his voice. Not totally satisfied, she teleported away anyway so that she could give some news to Joseph. Two months, two weeks later … Joseph was in the Aperture building, trying to figure out why the power wasn’t working. Eventually, he began to walk around and inside one of the branching rooms, found a book labelled, Electricity for Dummies. As he tried to grab the book from its shelf, he found that it tipped back slightly before resetting. After that, he heard a grating sound coming from the room opposite where he was. Walking towards the noise, he found that a short passage opened up to a bunch of wires. His mouth met the floor at the sheer amount of wires in the small room. All the colours crisscrossed in such a manner that it was indiscernible to which is white from whichever one is blue. “Oooh looky! A bunch of wires! Which one turns the power back on? No idea. There are red, blue, yellow, green and even purple wires! Bright colours all around!” Crikey said. Joseph smiled and shook his head. ‘This is a mess of wires. I suppose I’ll have to go through them one by one to see if they all work. If not, then it’s just been a huge waste of time.’ Joseph thought with a frown. Taking a breath, he went up to the wires and started fiddling around with them. Eventually, he found that practically all of them had been plugged out but because the wires were so messy, he didn’t realise it as they had all caught on to one another. ‘I knew I should have brought a flashlight, it’s so dark back here.” Joseph realised as he crawled out from the mess and picked up the gun. Leaving through the portal he had made earlier, he fizzled it out and, scratching his head at the wire problem, walked through the town, barely that there wasn’t any gunfire. ‘Where’s the gunfire and chirpy voices?’ He asked himself and looked around confusedly. “Chirpy? That’s a fantastic way to describe them, mate.” Crikey said sarcastically. Spotting a purple thing flash by, he shrugged and followed it, only to find that it disappeared around the corner. Thinking it strange, he turned the corner and found a filly blindfolding a turret. Blinking, he rubbed his eyes, only to see the blindfolded now being picked up by purple smoke. Raising an eyebrow, he thought to Crikey, ‘How long were we in there?’ “Meh. About a couple of hours. I’d shrug if I could.” Crikey answered. Scratching his head, Joseph looked to where the smoke was coming from and found Twilight levitating it. “I’m just as confused as you are.” Crikey stated, reading Joseph’s mind. “Hi Joseph! Twilight convinced Dinky and her family to blindfold the turrets! Dinky was wholly on board but it a little bit to convince her family but it worked out in the end.” Pinkie said, running up to Joseph before skidding to a stop. Her tail twitched and she quickly stepped to the side, narrowly avoiding an already deactivated turret. She looked up and found Ditzy sighing in relief. Waving, she turned back to Joseph, only to see him picking up the turret. “Whatcha doing there?” Pinkie wondered out loud. “He’s trying to see if he can figure out how they work, sheila.” Crikey replied for Joseph as he sat down and put the gun to the side. Moving the turret every which way, he inspected it from all sides before rolling the barrel of one of the twin gatling guns for a bit. “Oh okay. Try hitting that button on the back of it. Seems like it opens it up.” Pinkie said cheerfully before walking away to get rid of a few more turrets. “Mister monster?” A high-pitched voice spoke up from his left. Joseph looked up and found Dinky looking at him. She was holding a blindfold in her magic. “Miss Twilight and I thought it would be good if we got rid of those weird turret machine thingies. I managed to convince my family as well that you are not a baddie.” Dinky said with a smile. Joseph nearly melted from the adorableness contained in that smile. He could only nod dumbly as Crikey replied for him. “Thanks purple fillypony.” Crikey said. “No problem mister.” Dinky replied and ran off to find some more turrets to blindfold. Joseph smiled at that and got up, holding the turret in one hand, and the portal gun in the other. He then walked around town, watching Dinky’s family and Twilight cleaning up the town of turrets. All the turrets that were already cleaned up had been thrown to the Everfree Forest, with a chorus of “Owowowowow.” He saw a more of them fly towards the forest and got an idea. Finding one that hasn’t been blindfolded yet, he picked it up with the portal gun and walked towards the town hall. Being careful not to bump it on anything, he made it the balcony and set it down, making sure it didn’t wobble. Then, placing a portal underneath it, he set the other directly above it. Watching it loop around a few dozen times, he backed off and fired a portal on the side of the town hall facing the Everfree. After hearing a satisfying robot yell, he nodded to himself and went to Twilight’s library to figure out how those turrets work. Later that night, there were plenty of turret parts strewn about Twilight’s second floor library. Most noticeably was the big pile of bullets in the corner. Arranged in front of him were the two guns and an open shell. He took Pinkie’s advice and pushed the button on the back. When it opened, he immediately got rid of all the bullets which took longer than expected as there were so many. Now he was stuck trying to figure out how it all worked. Hearing the door open, he looked up and saw Spike walk in, carrying a plate of cookies. Setting it down in front him, Spike sat on the other side and began speaking. “Pinkie sent these over. She figured that you needed something to help take your mind off of your muteness.” Spike explained. He thought he saw Joseph’s face fall but it immediately went back into a smile. Spike didn’t know if he saw it or not but he let it go in favor of keeping Joseph happy. Spike picked up a cookie and bit into it. “Why did you take it apart?” He asked, looking around at the different parts. “He’s wondering how they work.” Crikey answered simply. His eye moved in a circular motion as he inspected the inside shell of the turret. Seeing some black stuff where there should be white, he zoomed in closer and saw it was some sort of shiny shell, like the shell of a bug. “Shiny black stuff. Reminds me of a bug or something.” Crikey stated. Joseph looked at the potato and found the black stuff he was inspecting. ‘Looks like chitin or something close to that.’ Joseph thought. Rubbing his hands together, he stood up and yawned, biting into another cookie. ‘Say thanks to Pinkie and Spike for me Crikey.” Joseph thought as he stretched. “My mate wanted me to say thanks for the cookies. No tastebuds so I can’t say the same. They look good though.” Crikey repeated to Spike. “Hey, it’s no problem. At least the town is free of turrets now.” Spike said with a smile. He picked up the plate and waving, he closed the door as he left. Yawning some more, Joseph unzipped his jumpsuit, letting the top half hang loose and then went over to his pile of blankets and got comfy under them. Closing his eyes, he began to snore softly soon after. Snoring sounds could be heard from Crikey as well although they were much louder. “What? Where am I?” Joseph wondered out loud. Looking around, he found himself in a field of stars that he was somehow standing on. Walking for a bit, he found Princess Luna waiting for him a bit further ahead. “Princess Luna?” Joseph asked cautiously. The pony turned around and groaned. “Why is that voice so annoying? Can you … be quiet … for a few seconds? We need to talk.” Princess Luna said with an effort. Joseph frowned and crossed his arms. “What can you say that will make me listen? I don’t want to talk to you, oh wait, I can’t!” Joseph said furiously. “I know you are furious at me. Believe me. Every time you have dreamt for the last few months, I saw you torture me.” Luna said with a bit of fear in her voice. “Yeah but it always ended with you giving my voice back so I was happy in the end.” Joseph retorted. “Wait. Why are you even looking at my dreams!?” “It’s what I do. I am the Protector of the Night and in order to do that I do four things. I go and see ponies’ dreams and I keep a lookout for possible monster attacks on Canterlot at night. I also raise the moon and make the stars look pretty. I keep going into their dreams from giving them too much grief. You are a special case, however. I stayed away from your dreams because of the subject matter involved. I didn’t want to keep seeing that and -” Luna got interrupted by Joseph putting his hand up. “Hang on a second.You go into ponies’ dreams to help them get rid of their nightmares. Isn’t that some kind of breach of privacy?” Joseph asked. “That may be but the ponies thank me for it after.” “No matter how you spin it, sheila, it’s a breach of privacy. When a pony dreams, it’s their OWN dreams. It’s whatever they like or dislike about whichever pony they feel about that day.” Joseph explained. “Why do you even want to talk to me? You said you hate my voice, you even told Twilight that was the reason for taking it away in the first place!” “I wanted to talk to you because my sister has finally convinced me to give you your voice back.” “Why? You’ll just take it away again.” Joseph said, feeling miserable that she had to actually be convinced to give him his voice back. “I might. But-” Luna tried to protest but it didn’t work. “I was this close to accepting but you had to blow it didn’t you? You shouldn’t have said that you might. You should have said ‘no, I won’t’. It’s like what Fluttershy said. Voices help give a pony or in my case, person, identity. If you can’t handle that then just say so!” Joseph said, hot, angry tears streaming down his face. Luna felt saddened but if that was his choice, then so be it. “I may not be able to handle it, that is true. But if you let me explain-” “I don’t want any explanations. Get out of my dream, and out of my head!” Joseph shouted, waking himself up. Feeling his face, he found wetness and slammed his fist against the floor, shouting dammit inside his head.